(AP) — A 53-year-old Nebraska man has pleaded not guilty to a charge that he robbed a northwest Iowa bank last fall.
Richard Shaffer, of Omaha, Neb., made his plea on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Sioux City. Shaffer is accused of robbing Heritage Bank in downtown Sioux City on Oct. 12.
Police say a robber gave a teller a note demanding cash and escaped with more than $3,700. The robber didn’t appear to be armed.
Shaffer’s trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 7.
(AP) — A judge has announced his intention to retire after dispensing federal justice in Nebraska for more than 44 years.
Senior U.S. District Judge Warren Urbom said Thursday that he’s sent a letter to President Barack Obama, telling the president that he’ll step down from the bench in April.
Urbom told the president: “My term has been one of thorough happiness.”
The 87-year-old Urbom says he reduced his schedule a few years back to three or four days a week. He says now it’s time to quit.
What will he do with his free time? The judge says he doesn’t know, “other than have a good time.”
(AP) — A 67-year-old private investigator in Omaha has denied federal allegations that she scammed a woman out of more than $850,000.
Patricia Walker-Halstead is listed on the Nebraska State of State’s Office list of licensed private investigators. Prosecutors say Walker-Halstead used the client’s money for gambling and personal expenses instead of on background checks and other security services.
Prosecutors say in documents backing up 11 counts of wire fraud that Walker-Halstead told her client that the client was being stalked and used other scare tactics to get the client’s money.
Walker-Halstead said at a Thursday news conference that she is not guilty. Walker-Halstead says she was hired in March 2011 to investigate several people, including the client’s former husbands and people she dated.
(AP) — Police in Spokane, Wash., say they have arrested one of two teens suspected of fatally beating an 88-year-old veteran of World War II who had survived the Battle of Okinawa.
Authorities say the two young men, between 16 and 19 years old, approached Delbert Belton in his car Wednesday night outside an Eagles Lodge as he was waiting for a friend.
Belton was found by police with serious head injuries and died in the hospital Thursday.
Spokane Police say they have surveillance images of the attackers.
The Spokesman-Review reports Belton was born and raised in Spokane before he joined the Army. Friends say he was shot in the leg during the Battle of Okinawa, where thousands of American soldiers died.
After the war, he spent 33 years working for Kaiser Aluminum, before retiring in 1982.
(AP) — The Nebraska Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of an Omaha man convicted of second-degree murder in a 2010 shooting at a south Omaha auto shop.
Shawn McGuire was sentenced to 105 to 125 years in prison for murder and two other convictions. Authorities say McGuire was the getaway driver in the slaying of 36-year-old Cesar Sanchez-Gonzalez, who was a government drug informant.
In his appeal McGuire alleged several errors by the trial court. Among them, he said the trial judge’s should not have accepted McGuire’s waiver of conflict of interest after his former lawyer began working for the prosecutor’s office.
The high court disagreed in its ruling issued Friday, saying there is no evidence to show district court’s decision to accept the waiver was erroneous.
(AP) — Republican state Sen. Beau McCoy is planning to jump into the 2014 Nebraska governor’s race.
A campaign spokesman said Friday that McCoy, of Omaha, was meeting with supporters and people who have worked in his previous legislative campaigns. The spokesman says McCoy will file campaign paperwork with the state in advance of a formal announcement.
McCoy, who owns a home improvement contracting business, has been active in the Republican Party since his teens. The 32-year-old was elected to the Nebraska Legislature in 2008 and re-elected last year.
McCoy will compete against state Sens. Charlie Janssen of Fremont and Tom Carlson of Holdrege in the GOP primary. Republican Pete Ricketts of Omaha is also expected to join the governor’s race.
(AP) — A Philadelphia woman has turned up alive nearly two weeks after her family held a funeral and burial.
50-year-old Sharolyn Jackson showed up at a mental health facility last Friday.
A body found July 20 on a Philadelphia street had been identified as Jackson. A spokesman for the Philadelphia Health Department says Jackson’s son and a social worker who knows her viewed pictures of the body and identified it as being hers.
Services for Jackson were held Aug. 3.
The now-buried body will be exhumed in hopes of correctly identifying the remains.
(AP) — The owner of a company that borrowed money from a county loan program has signed over tools and equipment to Red Willow County.
The county, in turn, has released the county’s security interest in Pawnee Aviation.
The company borrowed $300,000 from the program in December 2004 and defaulted. It made helicopter kits.
The tools and equipment that now belong to the county include prototype parts for the single-seat helicopter, a paint booth, a floor hoist, drill press and forklift.
Ticke
The NIRA Great Plains Region awarded the collegiate rodeo competition to Mid-Plains Community College earlier this summer. Twelve men’s teams and nine women’s collegiate rodeo teams from Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota and Wisconsin compete in the Great Plains Region.
The rodeo will begin at 7 p.m. on both Friday and Saturday nights. General admission tickets for each night are $11 for adults and $8 for children. Tickets are available at the Nebraskaland Days office, 509 E. 4th St. in North Platte, or online athttps://www.elevate.com/
Roy Burton Fisher, 89, of Curtis, Nebraska, died August 21, 2013 in Cozad, NE.
He was born December 10, 1923 in Moorefield, NE, son of Burton and Leafy L.(Clark) Fisher.
Roy grew up in the Moorefield area and graduated from Moorefield High School. He served his country in the US Navy as a Seabee from 1944-1946, stationed in Guam. June 8, 1947 married Katherine L Andersen at the Andersen homestead They lived around the Moorefield area most of their marriage, until they retired and moved to Curtis. Together they raised three children: Carol, Marvin, and Darrell. Roy was a lifelong farmer and rancher; farming and ranching East and Northeast of Moorefield NE. He was a past member of Nebraska Farm Bureau, Moorefield Elevator Board, and both Moorefield and Medicine Valley School Boards. He also served as the chairman of the Moorefield Cemetery Board.
Survivors include daughter – Carol Jean McKennon of Curtis, NE; two sons – Marvin R Fisher of Moorefield, NE, Darrell (Linda) Fisher of Moorefield, NE; two grandsons – Steven Fisher, Kevin Fisher both of Farnam, NE; two granddaughters – Christine (Bryan) Eicher of Commerce City, CO, Marie Fisher of Kearney, NE; along with several extended family and friends.
Roy was preceded in death by wife, Katherine L. Fisher; father, Burton Fisher; mother, Leafy L Fisher; brother, Loren Fisher; sister, Arlene Yeutter; son-in-law, Ralph Shuler.
Visitation will be held at Blase-Wetzel-Strauser Memorial Chapel, Curtis, Nebraska; Saturday, August 24, 2013 4:00 pm – 8:00 pm.
Services will be held at First United Methodist Church, August 25, 2013 at 2:30 pm with Rev. Bonnie Forney officiating.
Interment will follow in the Moorefield Cemetery, Moorefield, Nebraska.
Memorials may be given to the Moorefield Cemetery, Moorefield, NE or the Curtis Senior Center. To sign the online guest book, go to www.blasestrauser.com.
